“He’ll take up a position in the middle of the road,” the captain explained. “They won’t be suspicious of a boy and most likely won’t run him down.
“And,” he added, “I believe the coachman will be armed.”
Armed! I thought. Was I never to be out of danger?
After breakfasting the men lounged about, though I did see them clean and load their pistols, and check their horses.
Fearful of what might happen to me, I paced nervously, trying to decide if I should try and bolt. But the captain, pistol in hand, though he conferred with his men as if to give them courage, never took his eyes from me.
From time to time, Hawkes checked his pocket watch, and occasionally, looked up toward the sky. At one point, bread, drink, and dried meat were passed about. The captain squatting down by my side gave me a portion. I found it hard to eat. Rather, I took the opportunity to protest.
“Please, sir,” I said. “I don’t wish to stop the coach.”
“But when the stagecoach appears, you will hail it. You’ve nothing to do other than stand in the road.”
“But . . . what are you going to do?” I asked.
He smiled. “I think you know.”
“But please, sir, I have no desire to do this.”
“I’m not giving you a choice,” he replied. “You want to go to London, do you not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“After this business is done, I shall take you there.”
“Thank you, sir, but I really don’t want anything to do with the coach.”
“Then consider this: There are five of us. We shall be concealed, two to each side of the road. You will be on the road—which is to say in the middle. I am determined to stop the coach one way or another. As I think you know, I am pretty sharp with my pistol.”
“Yes, sir, I do know.”
“Very well then: You can stop the coach, or I can stop you. Do I make myself understood?” Most often the captain had the charm of fluttering ribbons. In that instant he changed into a sharp bayonet.
“Yes, sir,” I mumbled. “I understand.”
His easy smile returned. “Just know that I wish to be your teacher-friend. I intend to have grand times together.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, though my heart was heavy.
Perhaps an hour later the horses were brought up and saddles were adjusted. All four of the men mounted. Captain Hawkes put on his mask. The other men tied handkerchiefs over their faces. I alone was uncovered. At least, I thought, I would not be hanged for that.
“Oliver! Come up,” called Hawkes. Holding out a hand he pulled me onto his horse once more.
We went through the forest in a line. The autumnal leaves were sweetly scented, the moldy earth pungent. The men were silent as the horses plodded steadily forward, noses blowing vapor, tails occasionally twitching. A lovely moment, if you ignore the fact that I was quite convinced I was going to my death.
We reached the road, and it was as the captain had described. Trees shading the road. A little beyond the spot where we stopped the road curved, so I could not know where it went. In the other direction I could see for a considerable distance. I would have no trouble noticing the stagecoach when it came.
The men concealed themselves behind some trees on either side of the road, two to the left and one on the right. Captain Hawkes led his horse—both of us still mounted—some ways into the woods and tethered it there. The two of us—his hand tight upon my shoulder—walked back to the road.
“You must stand right here,” he said, scratching a clear line in the dust with his boot toe. “You’ll have an excellent view of the coach when it comes. And they of you. When you see them, stand fast and wave your hands. Shout. It will stop.”
“Please, sir,” I said again. “What if it . . . doesn’t stop? What if the coachman is armed and shoots me? And . . . please, sir, I don’t want to be a thief.”
He considered me with amusement. “I thought you already were one.”
Taken aback, I looked up. “What do you mean, sir?”
“Information has come to me that you already are a thief. What about those twenty-three shillings you stole from The Rose in June?”
My mouth hung open.
“As far as the law is concerned,” he went on with a smile, “once a thief, always a thief. Your lawyer father must have taught you that. If I were to impeach you, you’d surely hang and I would receive forty pounds’ reward for ensuring your conviction. I could live for a year on that. But”—he smiled—“I will protect you.”
Though shocked that he knew these things, I was sure I understood: Mr. Bartholomew had told him about me and my father.
It was as if I had been required to become a thief for the second time. All very well to give cautions, but had not Father’s behavior fairly forced me into terrible company?
“Now,” he said, all smiles and courtesy, “just do as you’re told. Be aware I shall not be far and I’ll have my pistol aimed right at you.” He took one of his pistols from his belt and cocked it, so that I could have no doubt about his threat. He was, I knew, a superb marksman.
With that Captain Hawkes retreated from the road and set himself behind a large bush. I doubted if the coach driver would see him, but I knew he was there.
There I stood, quite alone though very much aware that I was not alone. While I kept my eyes upon the road, I kept thinking of what the captain had said; that he knew I was a thief. That he could—if he chose—turn me in for a large reward. It utterly bejuggled my mind that he knew so much about me.
I was still struggling to grasp why Mr. Bartholomew would tell him about me, when I saw the stagecoach appear far down the road.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
In Which I Have an Unexpected Meeting.
The instant I saw the coach, my overwhelming desire was to flee. Hasty glances to the side of the road were all I needed to remind myself that the captain was lurking there, and what he promised to do if I budged so much as an inch from the line he had toed. My choice was clear: I could be shot for refusing to help rob the coach, or be hanged for my foolish fault in taking those shillings when desperate. Or I could be run over by the coach. Oh, the folly of misjudgment!
The other option was to help stop the coach and look for another chance to escape from Captain Hawkes. Since what I most wanted to do was continue living, that was my choice.
I therefore did not budge but kept my eyes on the advancing coach. At first it appeared small, enveloped in a whirly-wind of brown dust. Then, as it rushed forward, I made out the lead horse, the postilion upon him, then the two other horses and the coach right behind.
As I stood there, the stagecoach continued to rush on but then no danger moves so fast as that which endangers you. It was coming right at me, me so small and it so large, the horses immense so that I was utterly petrified. The closer the stagecoach drew, the more impaled I was to where I stood.
With considerable effort, I finally raised both my hands and began to wave. The coach continued to race on so that my ears were filled with its rattle and rumble, the beating of horse hooves upon the road no different than the beating of my heart, which thumped so it felt as if it would spring from my chest.
“Stop! Stop!” I shouted, my sole desire not to be run over.
It kept coming.
“Stop! Stop!” I screamed as loudly as I ever screamed before, waving my arms frantically, and jumping up and down.
The postilion hauled back on his reins, a look of dismay on his face, even as he cried out some command. The next moment the lead horse seemed to rise up, hooves pawing the air. The carriage creaked, squeaked, groaned, and swayed as if drunk and then . . . stopped.
“Are you mad, boy?” screamed the coach driver. “What is the matter?” In his hands he had a blunderbuss. It was not, happily, aimed at me.
That was the precise moment when the four masked men stepped out from their hiding places, their many pistols leveled at the coach.
It was the captain who c
alled out: “Throw down your gun or you are dead men all!”
Taken by surprise, the coach driver looked about, then threw his gun down to the road where it lay, quite useless.
As for the postilion, I was surprised to recognize him as Mr. Bartholomew’s manservant, he with the grand mustache. As he brushed the dust from his fine livery, he looked down at me with contempt, as if I, a mere boy, had insulted him for stopping the coach.
The captain called out again: “Tell your passengers to step upon the road.”
“Out! Out!” cried the coachman. “We have been waylaid!”
For a moment nothing occurred. Even the postilion looked round to see what was happening. Then the stage door swung open wide and out of the coach stepped Mr. Bartholomew.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
In Which I Am Party to a Robbery.
Mr. Bartholomew!
I had no expectations of seeing any particular person emerge from the stagecoach, but surely Mr. Bartholomew was absolutely the furthest from my mind. I was struck dumb, which means “mute, silent, incapable of speech.”
The customs master was not in any way different than when I had last seen him outside the guild hall in Melcombe. I trust I described him properly: a large man with a rough and rosy face, with thick black eyebrows, swept up—I supposed—to make him appear more forceful. He wore the same shoulder-length gooseberry wig. One hand held his tricorn hat. I did note that he did not have his short sword. But he did have his ivory-capped walking stick. In other words, nothing by which to defend himself.
When he stepped out of the coach he did so without the slightest sign of fear. He might have been strolling out of the customs house, the place he did his business. That is, he showed no sign of discomfort—until he turned about and observed me.
When Mr. Bartholomew did see me—please recall that among the highwaymen, I alone was without a mask—his reaction was as severe as mine. He stared at me stupidly, his mouth agape, eyes wide, as if he could not accommodate the image of me where I was. In fact, his body fairly reeled so that his very fine, ivory-capped walking stick, on which he was leaning heavily, snapped in two. He almost fell.
Recovering, the first thing he said was, “Why is this boy here?” Even more amazing, he asked this of the captain. It was almost as if to say, Why have you brought this boy here?
“Why do you ask, sir?” said the captain. “Might you know him?” I could have sworn I detected a sly smirk.
The customs master drew himself up in haughty fashion. “Know him?” he returned in a voice stuffed with sneering. “Of course not!”
Though I knew altogether otherwise, you may be sure I did not speak.
Then abruptly, the customs master was brought back to the affair at hand, when the captain barked, “Bring out all your money, sir!”
Mr. Bartholomew seemed to need a few moments to compose himself—first by standing somewhat taller, and second by saying in that pompous way he had, as if proclaiming profound laws from a pinnacle, “Sir, I presume you don’t know who I am.”
I thought this was a marvelous strange statement, since I had seen him in close conversation with Captain Hawkes in Melcombe. To see them face-to-face again brought back a forceful remembrance of that moment. They must know each other very well. My guess that it was Mr. Bartholomew who had informed him about me seemed proven.
“I don’t care who you are,” said the captain, another outlandish statement.
“I am Weymouth-Melcombe’s customs master,” returned Mr. Bartholomew with a bow, “an officer of His Majesty, George the First.”
“Just bring out your money, sir, and no one will be harmed.”
“May I inform you, sir, the money I have with me is customs revenue. It belongs to the king. I am carrying it to London.”
He spoke in just that unnatural way, as if he had taken his words from a script and was repeating his lines, bad acting though it was.
“Bring out the money, sir,” repeated the captain.
“If you take it, it will be a most serious crime,” proclaimed Mr. Bartholomew.
“Bring it out, sir,” the captain prompted, but not, I noted with any anger, urgency, or violence.
Mr. Bartholomew made no forceful resistance of any kind. Instead, he simply turned and looked into the coach. “Bring out the chest,” he said. He might as well have said, “Bring out the bread.”
He also exchanged a quick glance with his manservant, his postilion, which I decided was a knowing look.
Two men came out of the stagecoach lugging an iron strapped chest, which was closed with a large lock. They looked at the highwaymen. They looked at Mr. Bartholomew.
The customs master said, “Place it on the road.”
The men did so.
The captain said, “Open it.”
Mr. Bartholomew quickly drew out a key—he must have had it close at hand to be so fast—and unlocked the chest.
Kneeling, the captain threw back the top, looked in, grinned, and then stood up. “You may go, sir,” he said.
At that, Mr. Bartholomew looked toward the coachman who was peering down at all this. “Coachman!” he cried, “I call upon you to witness that I have been robbed by this armed highwayman!”
What else could the coachman say but, “Yes, sir. You have been.”
Mr. Bartholomew turned back to the captain. “Thank you, sir.”
“I thank you, sir,” returned the captain most civilly.
With that, Mr. Bartholomew gave a courtly bow—returned by Captain Hawkes—before climbing back into the coach. His two servants followed.
The captain slammed the coach door shut, and shouted, “Go!”
At that moment the postilion—Mr. Bartholomew’s manservant—jumped off his horse and gathered up his master’s elegant walking stick—now in two parts—giving me a particularly scornful look while doing so, as if it was I who had broken it. He then remounted, and the whole equipage clattered off.
I, of course, stood off to one side, witnessing all of this. The only moment of distress came when Mr. Bartholomew saw me. Yet once he had seen me and asked his question, he never looked at me again. In fact, it seemed as if he took pains not to consider me again. It was only his manservant, who made it clear he knew me and did so with contempt.
Once the stagecoach had clattered off, the captain and the other highwaymen took no notice of anything but the chest. Captain Hawkes kneeled and then dug his hands among bright silver coins. Laughing, he clearly took great pleasure in feeling the metal. As for his men, there was just as much hilarity.
“That was easy,” said one of them.
If anything, it was too easy. I was convinced that the captain and Mr. Bartholomew had planned the entire robbery beforehand.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
In Which I Begin to Perceive My Future.
The captain scooped the money into bags and attached the bags to his horse. He also gave handfuls of coins to each of his men. It was a small portion of the whole.
Then he turned to me and said, “Do you want your share?”
Not wishing to incriminate myself any more than I had been forced to, I shook my head.
There was a quick discussion as to how the gang would disperse, and when they might meet again. The time agreed was after, or so I understood, the captain’s business in London was completed.
Thereafter, the three men left quickly, leaving me alone with the captain. “Now,” he said, “you and I to London.”
I did not resist. In the first place, I did not think I could. Second, London was where I wished to go. Once I was there I could put my mind and legs to an escape so as to find my father and sister.
The captain hauled me up as before, took off his mask, and we set off at a canter.
The empty money chest was left behind.
“Why do you think that man asked about you?” the captain said once we had gone along for a while.
“I have no idea,” I lied blithely. “He said he came from Melcombe.
Perhaps he saw me about town.”
“Do you know,” the captain said casually, “I think that’s not quite true.”
“Sir?” I said, feeling some embarrassment for having been caught in my lie.
“I was in Melcombe a few days ago,” said the captain. “I met with Mr. Bartholomew.”
“Did you?” I said, trying to sound naïve, though as you, my reader, know, I was not surprised to hear this.
“He mentioned a boy and described him rather like you. He said you stole money from a wreck that was cast ashore during the recent storm. Told me the exact amount. Twenty-three shillings. Money you did not deny taking. He informed me that he wished to hold you so as to bring your lawyer father in. It appears he wishes to lay a charge against your parent for fraud. When you came into the Swan Inn the other night I recognized you right away.”
“Did you, sir?” I said, rather weakly.
He laughed. “Of course.”
“Sir, why would Mr. Bartholomew tell you about me?”
“We have a good friend in common.”
“Who would that be, sir?”
“Jonathan Wild.”
“Mr. Wild? The thief?”
The captain laughed and said, “The thief-catcher.”
“Is Mr. Bartholomew a . . . thief?”
“If Mr. Wild lodges information against him, he will be. Of that, you can be a witness. But mind, Mr. Bartholomew can be a witness against you as well.”
“For what?”
“For waylaying the stage.”
It was then and there I learned a major lesson. To wit: when we do wrong we bind ourselves to other people who do wrong. Moreover, it was the captain who was spreading the glue. He had arranged everything so that Mr. Bartholomew and I would be mutually tied together in crime.
To test this maxim, I said to the captain: “And London, sir, why are you going there?”
“I need to bring Mr. Wild this money. The money you and I just stole.”
“Me, sir?” I said weakly.
“You stopped the stagecoach, did you not?”
“Mr. Bartholomew seemed willing enough to give you the money.”